Subject: Cannot mount vfat filesystem, dmesg says "codepage cp437 not found"

From: Parke <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2020 14:32:33 -0700

I have two computers.  Both are running
alpine-standard-3.12.0-x86_64.iso, from a USB stick.  Computer A can
mount a vfat filesystem on a second USB stick.  Computer B cannot.

Computer A is an Acer laptop.  Computer B (that fails to mount) is an
Asus Chromebox with the firmware flashed to Seabios.

On the Chromebox, the following lines appear in dmesg when I attempt
to mount the vfat filesystem.

[ 1793.195155] FAT-fs (sdb1): utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for
FAT filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!
[ 1793.197887] FAT-fs (sdb1): codepage cp437 not found

The first above line (but not the second) appears on the Acer laptop.

The mount command itself prints the following error:

localhost:~# mount /dev/sdb1 /meda/sdb1
mount: mounting /dev/sdb1 on /media/sdb1 failed: Invalid argument

lsmod shows that both the "fat" and "vfat" modules are loaded on both computers.

I found some discussion of this error message on an Arch Linux forum:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=171880

Does anyone have any idea why Alpine can mount the vfat filesystem on
one computer, but not on the other?

Thank you,

Parke

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From: Parke <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2020 15:03:18 -0700

Update:  It appears the problem is not specific to a single computer.
I have now encountered the problem on both computers.  I have not yet
figured out a way to consistently reproduce the problem.

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From: Parke <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2020 15:43:09 -0700

I have identified the problem.

My goal is to run Alpine without any disks.  (I had assumed this would
be "diskless mode".)  I want to boot from a USB stick, and then be
able to remove the USB stick after bootup has completed.

I had assumed that the Alpine installation .iso would run in diskless
mode.  Consequently, after boot, I did the following:

umount /.modloop
umount /dev/sdb

After the above two umount commands, attempts to mount a vfat
filesystem result in the "Invalid argument" error.

The Alpine documentation discusses "diskless mode" here:

https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Alpine_setup_scripts#diskless_mode

However, it appears that even after you run setup-alpine and select
disk=none, the following are still true:

1) /.modloop is mounted.
2) The installation media (which backs /.modloop) is still required.

Are there any guides or tutorials that explain how to configure Alpine
so that all disks can be removed after boot?

Thank you,

Parke

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From: PICCORO McKAY Lenz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2020 10:39:38 -0400

i  have pointed out that several times before, the iso's and diskless mode
is so minimal, you have to bring many things from the internet repoitory to
make it work halfway decent at least. *You must install all the needs in
your current mounted root before detaching any media origin.. *

If we want to install alpine in a intranet with limited network.. also
could be a hard way..  i remember that alpine born cos based origin was
"too limited" now seem history repeat ¿?

Although it is true that today is hard to provide a minimal instalation or
there is no small operating system for the amount of utilities we need in
each hardware ... this situation on alpine isos images leaves not so much
to be functional, for example, only the alpine for x86 and x64 (extended)
has the minimum to enter and put everything to work without taking
something from the network (when this was very difficult to configure as
the wifi or vpn)

http://qgqlochekone.blogspot.com